Federal 100: Ivy Estabrooke

By FCW Staff

Mar 10, 2014

Name: Ivy EstabrookeTitle: Program Officer, Office of Naval ResearchAgency: Department of the Navy

Funding the future. Remember the movie "Minority Report," with its precognitive policing? Estabrooke's work can sound like the real-life version. A neuroscientist, she leads programs that apply behavioral, social and computational science to national security, allowing decision-makers to identify and respond to political instability and crises before they take place. The full benefits are still years down the road, but early prototypes were used in 2013 after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines. Moreover, Estabrooke convinced the Navy and Defense Department to exponentially increase research funding in a time of sequesters and shutdowns -- a task arguably harder than predicting the future.